Can an animation sequence be muted?
Yes an animation sequence can be muted.

In the dopesheet/action editor window you may click on the speaker icon to mute the action.  This is the simple use.  The speaker icon is very small, please look closely.

The speaker icon can be toggled active or muted.  There are also other ways to activate or inactivate an animation.



The image above shows the dopesheet/action editor window type in the upper left. The blue cube has been animated.  You may simply click the speaker icon for simple cases and be done.  When the speaker icon is muted the animation will be muted.

Read further only for more advanced use.

For more advanced use you may use two window types.

By using the dopesheet action editor window and the NLA editor window.
By make active and inactive the animation action.



The image above shows the dopesheet/action editor window scrolled to show the action name .... and the button [Push Down]

The Blender user can click the button [Push Down].
The Blender user can switch to NLA Editor window type.



In the above NLA window we see the action with speaker active icon next to it indicated with an arrow.  Look closely it may be difficult to see.  The active icon can be clicked on and off.



In the above NLA Window the speaker is in the inactive state.  Look closely.

Blender:

version 2.74 (sub 0), branch b'master', commit date b'2015-03-31' b'13:39', hash b'000dfc0', b'Release'
build date: b'2015-03-31', b'15:46:51'
platform: b'Windows:32bit'